Every now and then I accidentally make up a recipe that turns out better than expected – last night was one of those times, and I wanted to share it with you.

The picture above I got from an online soup recipe page because it closely resembles my soup – and I forgot to get a photograph of mine. It comes from this page (which is not my recipe but kind of close:

2) put the veggies into a regular blender and whizz them into a puree, or into a food processor and do the same. I would recommend doing the latter two methods with just the veggies, not the broth, and then just add the pureed veggies to the broth).

Put heat on under pot and bring back to bubbling.

Add one can of CREAM OF SHRIMP soup (concentrated) and stir, on low heat, until all is combined, about 2 minutes.

(Note: I had originally planned to use one can of CHEDDAR CHEESE soup, but I was all out of that and I had several cans of the Cream of Shrimp – so I tried it – boy was it ever the right decision! It came out fabulous!)

Cook up some bacon in the oven if you like. I did that with several pieces and when it was crispy, I cut it up and added it to our individual bowls. I wouldn’t add it to the soup pot because it would get soft and mushy in there. Just sprinkle on top of the soup.

This was the perfect soup! I had meant to add some potatoes to the mix of veggies, but as I only had 4 potatoes left for the rest of the week, I omitted them. It didn’t matter! The soup was perfection! Paul agreed, as well.

If you don’t have a butternut squash, you could use more carrots, like a small bag of carrots.

So that’s my offering for a wonderful fall dinner. This one was a keeper, we both loved it and I will definitely do this more often. Roasting the veggies, rather than sauteing them in the pot, was nice. I think they held their flavor more this way.

Have you got some favorite cold weather soup recipes you could share? I love to collect them – I can see soup being a major staple in our dinners this winter – it seems like it’s going to be a long cold one!

12 Responses to Cold Weather Means Soup’s On!

What usually happens is I put something in my shopping cart and go to check out and Amazon put a red lettered warning at the top of the page that says “The item you have selected can not be delivered to your address”.

Some things you can buy at Amazon and send to Canada and some you can’t.

That’s a shame TT. It’s so good, too. I looked it up on amazon.ca and they had it listed once but at an exorbitant price — I can’t see why you couldn’t buy it from amazon.com and have it delivered there? I buy things all the time from amazon.uk and ship across an ocean so why is that any different? Just because it’s not made here doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to have it shipped.

I know this is all silly for a can of soup, but I did see in amazon.com (US) that you could get it pretty cheap if you buy 12 cans of it – for about $2 a can… plus of course the shipping. That’s less then we pay for it here!

TT – no burnt taste. The veggies don’t get burnt, they are just soft and cooked but retain all their flavor. Roasting veggies has been all the rage for a few years now, at least on the cooking shows I watch, and I am finally coming around to this technique.

For cooking potatoes, to have instead of french fries, I wash and cut up 2 Idaho potatoes into inch-size pieces, and I microwave them on a plate for about 3-4 minutes, just so they get soft in the centers. Then I put them on a cookie sheet and drizzle olive oil, salt & pepper, and put them in the oven at 375F for about 20-25 minutes. They come out fabulously crispy on the outside and soft on the inside… much better than fries that come from the store (or “chips” as some would call them). You could even do this whole thing in a toaster oven, I’ve done that as well.

You can’t get Cream of Shrimp soup there? Wow. I use that a lot in casseroles, especially a lobster casserole that has lobster meat and white fish chunks. I’ve even grown to love just having a cup of Cream of Shrimp soup (made with some 1% milk) plain and it’s really yummy.

You might see if you could get it on amazon somewhere, in bulk. Paul found it at our Market Basket on sale the other week and he got 6 cans! Not sure how much we pay, I do know it’s more than the average kinds… but it’s worth it.

I used to be able to find wild watercress in a stream down by one of the local beaches in NY. It was so good and only grew in unpolluted, moving water. I loved wild crafting back then. So much is gone now. I would like to wild craft here in NC but the venomous snakes make me jittery.

Thanks Anna for all that. I suppose we get watercress here in the States but I’ll be damned if I’ve ever seen it! And since Paul does all the food shopping now for me, he’d never be able to locate it! Hard enough just to get my staples each week!

If you maybe add some milk or cream instead of the canned soup, it might work. IMO, the small can of soup made all the difference though. I will use a can of Campbell’s Cheddar Cheese soup in things like pasta dishes with tomato sauce, and it softens the harshness of the acid in the tomatoes and makes a really great sauce for the pasta. If it goes into a big enough recipe, you are not getting THAT much of what’s in the can really. But cream or milk might work too.

And roasting of cauliflower has become all the rage here these days, roasting any veggie… especially kale which can turn into kale chips in the oven with a little oil, salt, pepper.

That sounds delicious, Bex, and today I bought a cauli and a butternut squash so I shall try a mini version tomorrow. I’ve never thought of roasting cauliflower, but everything else tastes better that way. When you boil, the flavour seeps into the water, but when you roast, any water evaporates – I use baked potatoes for mash quite often as it makes it so tasty. I won’t add the can of soup though as I’m trying to stick to raw basic ingredients these days. Do you get watercress in the States? There’s a great soup with that – fry onion and potato in butter with a splash of oil (to stop the butter burning) till a bit soft but not coloured (lid on), add the chopped stalks of watercress, add milk and water, cook till potatoes are done, add chopped watercress leaves then blitz. I’ve also copied Maggie’s recipe and plan on trying that! Happy fall, dear Bex xxx

Place all ingredients in a saucepan, simmer for 1/2 hour. Puree and serve.

Note: I used 1/4 tsp ground ginger in place of fresh ginger and 1 teaspoon granulated garlic for the fresh garlic (We can only buy ginger and garlic from China so I don’t like using fresh garlic. Something for the garden next year.)